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Well-known for his classic adaptations, Matthew Bourne has once again embraced the opportunity to recreate a fairy tale: Sleeping Beauty. Claiming a Tchaikovsky ballet for the third time running, Bourne has streamlined this story into a gothic retelling, adding whimsical elements to delight and surprise the audience.

Originally choreographed in 1890 by Marius Petipa, Sleeping Beauty was then considered a technical venture of epic proportions. Narrowing the lens of the story, Bourne created token gestures referencing original movements, but reinvents and appropriates the solos at will. Instead of a ballroom filled with people, the audience is given a room of Fairies, bestowing their gifts to delight the child in the dark of night. In a delightful twist, the Lilac Fairy emerges surprisingly as a dominant male, a commanding and protective spirit for the child.

Most notable was Bourne’s alteration of characterisations. No longer is Aurora in the sidelines of her own story, but is represented as a willful and engaging child demonstrated through the clever use of puppetry. An endearing scene with the child Aurora being chased around the room by her nurse allows for the believable development of Aurora into an adult, one curious and rebellious enough to prick her finger on an enchanted flower.

If baby puppet Aurora dominated and delighted the audience in act one, act two’s surprise was the arrival of the evil Carabosse’s son, Caradoc. Rivaling the love Aurora had found in her family’s gardener Leo, Caradoc attempts to make Aurora his own, intending to claim her life as he takes her as his own. Thwarting his plan, Leo is only able to penetrate the gates of the house and survive the sleep through the mercy of Christopher Marney as the Lilac Fairy, who is all gothic grandeur, possessing hidden vampiric talent. These modern inflections are what allow Bourne’s adaptation to re-contextualise the story itself, cleverly providing sound solutions to holes in the tale (how would Leo live through one hundred years without being enchanted?).

Though large-scale scenes are avoided as a general rule in this work, there was still some surprising alternatives. Aurora’s sixteenth birthday, occurring in 1911 was, with the aid of talented designer Lez Brotherston, an Edwardian explosion of waltz and ‘The Castle Walk’. Equally stimulating was “the land of the sleepwalkers”, a clever use of blindfolded dancers under enchantment allowing for the continuation of Aurora as an active dancer rather than as a passive character.

Those who prefer a true take on Tchaikovsky’s ballet may be disappointed by the alterations Bourne has undertaken, but in doing so Bourne has recreated, spliced and spiced up the original. Focussed around the central story, contextualized to present day, Bourne has evolved the fairytale to create something engaging and applicable to audiences who see the true value and timelessness of a good fairytale.